Controlling illumination in a household appliance

ABSTRACT

The present disclosure relates to a method of controlling illumination in a household appliance (10) configured to store one or more food items (13), and a household appliance (10) performing the method. In an aspect, a method of controlling illumination in a household appliance (10) configured to store one or more food items (13) is provided, said household appliance (10) comprising a lighting arrangement (12) configured to illuminate an interior of the household appliance (10). The method comprises receiving (S101) an instruction to highlight at least a section of the interior of the household appliance (10), and controlling (S102) said lighting arrangement (12) to highlight said at least a section of the interior, thereby enabling a dual functionality for the lighting arrangement (12) to selectively light up the interior of the household appliance (10) and to highlight said section of the interior.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates to a method of controlling illumination in a household appliance configured to store one or more food items, and a household appliance performing the method.

BACKGROUND

In prior art household compliances arranged to store food items, such as for instance a wine cabinet configured to store bottles of wine, dedicated lighting devices are used to highlight particular sections of an interior of the appliance.

In for instance wine cabinets, shelves on which the wine bottles are stored may be equipped with light sources in the form of for instance light emitting diodes (LED), which are activated to emit light at a position where a particular bottle of wine is stored in order to inform a user accordingly.

However, dedicated light sources must then be mounted to each shelf which is costly and further may not be desired by a user from an esthetical perspective.

U.S. Pat. No. 10,641,445 discloses an illumination system comprising a base that supports a lighting assembly. The base and the lighting assembly is configured within a beverage container display unit to illuminate the beverages within the unit. The base and the lighting assembly is located below the beverage containers within the unit to illuminate the containers from below.

U.S. Pat. No. 9,814,325 discloses an illuminated bottle rack adapted for use with a beverage display. The rack includes an LED strip that is adapted to attach itself onto a beverage display shelf and further to be presented underneath the beverage display shelf so as to illuminate at least one bottle positioned on the beverage display shelf.

SUMMARY

An objective is to solve, or at least mitigate, this problem in the art and thus to provide an improved method of controlling illumination in a household appliance configured to store one or more food items.

This objective is attained in a first aspect by a method of controlling illumination in a household appliance configured to store one or more food items, said household appliance comprising a lighting arrangement configured to illuminate an interior of the household appliance. The method comprises receiving an instruction to highlight at least a section of the interior of the household appliance, and controlling said lighting arrangement to highlight said at least a section of the interior, thereby enabling a dual functionality for the lighting arrangement to selectively light up the interior of the household appliance and to highlight said section of the interior.

This objective is attained in a second aspect by a household appliance arranged to store one or more food items, which comprises a lighting arrangement and a processing unit, which is connected to the lighting arrangement and being configured to control illumination of an interior of the household appliance, and to receive an instruction to highlight at least a section of the interior of the household appliance, and to control said lighting arrangement to highlight said at least a section of the interior, thereby enabling a dual functionality for the lighting arrangement to selectively light up the interior of the household appliance and to highlight said section of the interior.

Advantageously, an already available lighting arrangement of the household appliance—being for instance a wine cabinet—used to illuminate the interior of the wine cabinet is further used to indicate particulars of wine storing to the user, such as for instance highlighting a section where a particular bottle is located or a shelf in the cabinet. Thus, a dual functionality is enabled for the lighting arrangement to selectively light up the interior of the wine cabinet and to highlight a particular section of the interior.

In an embodiment, the receiving of an instruction comprises receiving an instruction to highlight a particular retainer storing one or more food items, and the controlling of said lighting arrangement (12) further comprises controlling said lighting arrangement to highlight the particular retainer.

In an embodiment, the receiving of an instruction comprises receiving an instruction to visually differentiate between at least two sections of the interior, and the controlling of said lighting arrangement further comprises controlling said lighting arrangement to illuminate one of the at least two sections with light of a first colour and to illuminate another of the at least two sections with light of a second colour.

In an embodiment, the controlling of said lighting arrangement comprises controlling said lighting arrangement to highlight said at least a section of the interior by turning individual light sources of the lighting arrangement on and off, by changing the colour of the light emitted by the lighting arrangement, or by pulsating the emitted light with a certain frequency, etc.

In an embodiment, the instructions are received over a wireless communication interface of the household appliance.

In an embodiment, the instructions are received via a control panel of the household appliance via which a user enters the instructions.

Generally, all terms used in the claims are to be interpreted according to their ordinary meaning in the technical field, unless explicitly defined otherwise herein. All references to “a/an/the element, apparatus, component, means, step, etc.” are to be interpreted openly as referring to at least one instance of the element, apparatus, component, means, step, etc., unless explicitly stated otherwise. The steps of any method disclosed herein do not have to be performed in the exact order disclosed, unless explicitly stated.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Aspects and embodiments are now described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 shows a prior art wine cabinet equipped with a lighting arrangement for illuminating an interior of the wine cabinet;

FIG. 2 shows a wine cabinet equipped with a lighting arrangement for illuminating an interior of the wine cabinet according to an embodiment;

FIG. 3 shows a wine cabinet equipped with a lighting arrangement for illuminating an interior of the wine cabinet according to another embodiment;

FIG. 4 shows a flowchart of a method of controlling illumination in a household appliance according to an embodiment;

FIG. 5 shows a wine cabinet equipped with a lighting arrangement for illuminating an interior of the wine cabinet according to another embodiment; and

FIG. 6 illustrates a wine cabinet according to another embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The aspects of the present disclosure will now be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which certain embodiments of the invention are shown.

These aspects may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limiting; rather, these embodiments are provided by way of example so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and to fully convey the scope of all aspects of invention to those skilled in the art. Like numbers refer to like elements throughout the description.

FIG. 1 illustrates a household appliance 10 configured to store food items, in which embodiments may be implemented. The household appliance will throughout the description be embodied in the form of a wine cabinet, i.e. a wine refrigerator storing food items in the form of wine bottles.

The wine cabinet 10 comprises a plurality of retainers 11 configured to store the bottles 13 in the form of shelves on which the bottles are stored.

A lighting arrangement 12 is arranged inside the cabinet 10, in this example along an opening of the cabinet from a bottom section to a top section. The lighting arrangement 12 may be continuously activated to create an atmospheric lighting inside the cabinet 10, or may be activated to illuminate the interior of the cabinet 10 upon a user opening the cabinet door.

Now, in an embodiment illustrated with reference to FIG. 2 , the lighting arrangement 12 is configured as a strip of light sources 14 a-14 e, such as for instance light emitting diodes (LEDs) being individually addressable by a controller 15 referred to as a central processing unit (CPU) such that each LED may be turned on or off as selected by the CPU 15. As shown in the lower right-hand illustration, the LEDs may be more or less closely arranged on the strip.

Thus, the already available lighting arrangement 12 is further utilized to indicated to a user for instance in which section of the cabinet a particular bottle is placed, if a section of the cabinet pertains to a specific temperature zone, if a bottle containing wine made from a particular grape is to be placed in a certain shelf, etc., or other types of alerts or notifications.

The controlling of the lighting arrangement 12 and thus the respective LED 14 a-14 e may be performed by a user utilizing a communication device such as a smart phone executing a wine cabinet control application (app) to wirelessly communicate instructions to the CPU 15 (also being equipped with wireless communication facilities) using for instance Bluetooth. Other means of communication are envisaged such as Wi-Fi, radio-frequency identification (RFID) or near-field communication (NFC).

FIG. 3 illustrates a wine cabinet to according to an embodiment of a slightly lower height than that shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 . As shown, a bottle 13 is located on top shelf 11. For illustrational purposes a first LED 14 a and a second LED 14 b being part of the lighting arrangement is shown. In practice, these LEDs are more or less flush with the strip on which there are mounted extending vertically along one or both of the inner walls of the cabinet 10 adjacent to the opening and typically cannot be seen with a naked eye when not activated to emit light. Further, the lighting arrangement will in practice typically comprise tens of light sources.

The CPU 15 sends an activation signal to the respective LED 14 a, 14 b to e.g. turn the LED on/off, change the colour of the emitted light, have the light pulsate with a certain frequency, etc. The control of the light emitted by the LEDs 14 a, 14 b may be performed by the smart phone 16 wirelessly sending instructions to the CPU 15 accordingly.

In an example, assuming that the user is operating a virtual wine cellar app on her phone and communicates to the app that she wishes the cabinet to indicate to her where her bottle of 1955 Cheval Blanc is located in the cabinet to. It is assumed that the wine cellar app and the CPU 15 are synchronized with each other such that when a bottle is selected in the wine cellar app, the CPU 15 knows its corresponding position (commonly referred to as “bin”) in the cabinet to.

Reference is further made to FIG. 4 showing a flowchart illustrating a method of controlling illumination in the wine cabinet 10.

Thus, the user selects the 1955 Cheval Blanc from the app with a light press of her finger on the touch screen of the smart phone 16 to wirelessly send a signal accordingly to the cabinet 10. The CPU 15 will thus in step S101 receive an instruction from the smart phone 16 to highlight at least a section of the interior of the wine cabinet 10—in this case a section where the bottle of 1955 Cheval Blanc 13 is located—and conclude that the bottle of 1955 Cheval Blanc 13 is located on the top shelf 11 in the cabinet 10.

In order to indicate to the user which bottle is the selected one, it may be envisaged for instance that the CPU 15 in step S102 controls the lighting arrangement 12 to highlight the section of the interior where the bottle 13 is located by activating the first LED 14 a while deactivating one or more of the neighbouring LEDs (or all remaining LEDs) thereby controlling the lighting arrangement 12 to highlight the selected section of the interior, in this example by emitting a beam of light highlighting a top left-hand section of the interior to indicate to the user in which section the 1955 Cheval Blanc 13 is located.

Advantageously, the already available lighting arrangement 12 of the wine cabinet 10 used to illuminate the interior of the cabinet 10 is further used to indicate particulars of the wine storing to the user. Thus, a dual functionality is enabled for the lighting arrangement 12 to selectively light up the interior of the wine cabinet 10 and to highlight said section of the interior, in this case the section where the bottle of 1955 Cheval Blanc 13 is located. The lighting arrangement 12 may be controlled to light up either only the interior of the cabinet, only the section with the bottle 13, or both.

It should be noted that the available lighting arrangement 12 may illuminate the interior continuously during operation of the wine cabinet 10 or may be activated to illuminate the interior upon a user opening a cabinet door.

In the art, wine cabinets are used which for instance have dedicated light sources mounted to the shelves to indicate a particular storage position to the user. However, as is understood, dedicated light sources must then be mounted to each shelf which is costly and further may not be desired by a user from an esthetical perspective.

In another example, illustrated with reference to FIG. 5 , the wine cabinet may be arranged with different temperature zones; for instance, a top section may be arranged to store wine at a first temperature, while a bottom section may be arranged to store wine at a second temperature (higher or lower than the first level), where the two sections are thermally separated from each other.

Upon a user configurating the temperature zones, she may select that the cooler section is to be illuminated with blue light, in this case by LEDs 14 a, 14 b, 14 e, 14 f while the other is illuminated with red light by LEDs 14 c, 14 d, 14 g, 14 h.

Advantageously, the colour of the light emitted by the lighting arrangement 12 will visually indicate to the user the different temperature zones of the cabinet 10 instead of—as commonly performed in the art—providing a dedicated display in connection to each zone indicating e.g. that one zone is at 10° C. while the other is at 14° C.

Further, the wine cabinet 10 may comprise a control panel 17 via which the user may enter instructions to the CPU 15 for controlling the lighting arrangement 12.

The wine cabinet 10 may further comprise a display 18 showing any desirable information. For instance, assuming that the user intends to open a bottle of wine made from the Pinot Noir grape; the user may then enter such information via the control panel 17 or via the smart phone 16. The CPU 15 may as a response highlight a particular shelf intended for storing Pinot Noir wines.

With further reference to FIG. 5 , assuming that the user is to add a bottle of wine to the cabinet 10 and operates the virtual wine cellar app on her phone accordingly and communicates to the app that she wishes the cabinet 10 to indicate where the bottle is to be placed.

Assuming for instance that wines originating from the Bordeaux region is to be placed on the top shelf 11; the user indicates in the app that she will add a bottle of Bordeaux which information is sent from the smart phone 16 to the CPU 15.

The CPU 15 thus receives an instruction from the smart phone 16 to highlight at least a section of the interior of the wine cabinet 10—in this case the section of the cabinet 10 where Bordeaux wines are stored—and in response the CPU activates the LED 14 a and the oppositely located LED 14 e to emit light onto the top shelf 11, where the Bordeaux wines are stored.

Advantageously, the already available lighting arrangement 12 of the wine cabinet 10 used to illuminate the interior of the cabinet 10 is further used to indicate particulars of the wine storing to the user. This particular embodiment emphasizes that instead of equipping a shelf with dedicated light sources, the available lighting arrangement 12 is controlled to provide shelf illumination.

In an alternative embodiment, the instructions are not wirelessly transferred to the CPU 15 from the smart phone 16, but from e.g. an RFID tag attached to a bottle 13 being placed in the cabinet 10. In an example, a user swipes the RFID tag over a particular section of the cabinet 10 being equipped with an RFID reader in communication with the CPU 15, for instance the control panel 17. The CPU 15 may then control the lighting arrangement 12 to e.g. highlight a particular shelf 11 intended to store the bottle 13 in line with the instructions received.

In this particular embodiment, the household appliance is a wine refrigerator storing food items in the form of wine bottles. However, it is noted that in another envisaged embodiment, the appliance is a regular fridge storing food items such as fruit and vegetables, canned goods, milk cartons, meat, cheese, etc.

FIG. 6 illustrates a household appliance 10 according to an embodiment. The steps of the method performed by the household appliance 10 for controlling illumination of an interior of the household appliance 10 are in practice performed by a processing unit 15 embodied in the form of one or more CPUs or microprocessors arranged to execute a computer program 19 downloaded to a suitable storage volatile medium 20 associated with the microprocessor, such as a Random Access Memory (RAM), or a non-volatile storage medium such as a Flash memory or a hard disk drive. The processing unit 15 is arranged to cause the household appliance 10 to carry out the method according to embodiments when the appropriate computer program 19 comprising computer-executable instructions is downloaded to the storage medium 20 and executed by the processing unit 15. The storage medium 20 may also be a computer program product comprising the computer program 19. Alternatively, the computer program 19 may be transferred to the storage medium 20 by means of a suitable computer program product, such as a Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) or a memory stick. As a further alternative, the computer program 19 may be downloaded to the storage medium 20 over a network. The processing unit 15 may alternatively be embodied in the form of a digital signal processor (DSP), an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), a complex programmable logic device (CPLD), etc.

The aspects of the present disclosure have mainly been described above with reference to a few embodiments and examples thereof. However, as is readily appreciated by a person skilled in the art, other embodiments than the ones disclosed above are equally possible within the scope of the invention, as defined by the appended patent claims.

Thus, while various aspects and embodiments have been disclosed herein, other aspects and embodiments will be apparent to those skilled in the art. The various aspects and embodiments disclosed herein are for purposes of illustration and are not intended to be limiting, with the true scope and spirit being indicated by the following claims. 

1. A method of controlling illumination in a household appliance (10) configured to store one or more food items (13), said household appliance (10) comprising a lighting arrangement (12) configured to illuminate an interior of the household appliance (10), the method comprising: receiving (S101) an instruction to highlight at least one section of the interior of the household appliance (10); and controlling (S102) said lighting arrangement (12) to highlight said at least one section of the interior, thereby enabling a dual functionality for the lighting arrangement (12) to selectively light up the interior of the household appliance (10) and to highlight said at least one section of the interior.
 2. The method of claim 1, the receiving (S101) of an instruction to highlight at least one section of the interior comprising: receiving an instruction to highlight a particular retainer (11) storing one or more food items (13); and the controlling (S102) of said lighting arrangement (12) further comprising: controlling said lighting arrangement (12) to highlight the particular retainer (11).
 3. The method of claim 1, the receiving (S101) of an instruction to highlight at least one section of the interior comprising: receiving an instruction to visually differentiate between at least two sections of the interior; and the controlling of said lighting arrangement (12) comprising: controlling said lighting arrangement (12) to illuminate one of the at least two sections with light of a first colour and to illuminate another of the at least two sections with light of a second colour.
 4. The method of claim 1, the controlling (S102) of said lighting arrangement (12) comprising: controlling (S102) said lighting arrangement (12) to highlight said at least a section of the interior by turning individual light sources (14 a-14 c) of the lighting arrangement (12) on and off, by changing the colour of the light emitted by the lighting arrangement (12), or by pulsating the emitted light with a certain frequency.
 5. The method of claim 1, the instructions being received over a wireless communication interface of the household appliance (10).
 6. The method of claim 1, the instructions being received via a control panel (17) of the household appliance (10) via which a user enters the instructions.
 7. A computer program (19) comprising computer-executable instructions for causing a household appliance (10) to perform steps recited in claim 1 when the computer-executable instructions are executed on a processing unit (15) included in the household appliance (10).
 8. A computer program product comprising a computer readable medium (20), the computer readable medium having the computer program (19) according to claim 7 embodied thereon.
 9. A household appliance (10) arranged to store one or more food items (13), which comprises a lighting arrangement (12) and a processing unit (15), which is connected to the lighting arrangement (12) and configured to control illumination of an interior of the household appliance (10) and to: receive an instruction to highlight at least a section of the interior of the household appliance (10); and to control said lighting arrangement (12) to highlight said at least a section of the interior, thereby enabling a dual functionality for the lighting arrangement (12) to selectively light up the interior of the household appliance (10) and to highlight said section of the interior.
 10. The household appliance (10) of claim 9, being configured to, when receiving an instruction to highlight at least one section of the interior: receive an instruction to highlight a particular retainer (11) storing one or more food items (13); and further being configured to, when controlling said lighting arrangement (12): control said lighting arrangement (12) to highlight the particular retainer (11).
 11. The household appliance (10) of claim 9, being configured to, when receiving an instruction to highlight at least one section of the interior: receive an instruction to visually differentiate between at least two sections of the interior; and further being configured to, when controlling said lighting arrangement (12): control said lighting arrangement (12) to illuminate one of the at least two sections with light of a first colour and to illuminate another of the at least two sections with light of a second colour.
 12. The household appliance (10) of claim 9, being configured to, when controlling said lighting arrangement (12): control said lighting arrangement (12) to highlight said at least a section of the interior by turning individual light sources (14 a-14 c) of the lighting arrangement (12) on and off, by changing the colour of the light emitted by the lighting arrangement (12), or by pulsating the emitted light with a certain frequency.
 13. The household appliance (10) of claim 9, further comprising a wireless communication interface and being configured to receive the instructions over the wireless communication interface.
 14. The household appliance (10) of claim 9, further comprising a control panel (17) and being configured to receive the instructions via the control panel (17) via which a user enters the instructions.
 15. The household appliance (10) of claim 9, the lighting arrangement (12) comprising light sources (14 a-14 c) configured to be individually activated.
 16. The household appliance (10) of claim 15, said individually addressable light sources (14 a-14 c) being arranged on a strip extending along a height of the household appliance (10). 